


i want to be a context for you (and you for me)

by cryptidgay



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: (not important to the fic but important to ME), Autistic Nagomi McDaniel, Developing Relationship, F/F, Phone Calls & Telephones, Season/Series 06, Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26489938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidgay/pseuds/cryptidgay
Summary: It’s difficult to measure days from the inside of a peanut shell. By Nagomi's reckoning, it’s been two weeks when the phone rings.
Relationships: Jessica Telephone/Nagomi McDaniel
Comments: 7
Kudos: 48





	i want to be a context for you (and you for me)

**Author's Note:**

> first blaseball fic! characterization is half wiki, half my own headcanons, and may not be totally compliant with established lore. 
> 
> title from 'this is how you lose the time war' by amal el-mohtar and max gladstone. (edit: i've been informed amal el-mohtar likes blaseball. if you're amal el-mohtar and you're reading my fic you legally have to tell me.) (edit part 2: thank you for following the law and telling me.)
> 
> loosely inspired by goblin's [nagomi/jess art!](https://twitter.com/glassgoblin/status/1305899474410262528?s=20)

It’s difficult to measure days from the inside of a peanut shell.

This is, all in all, what Nagomi finds hardest. She’s used to jet lag; she’s shuttled back and forth from stadium to stadium, whether for away-games or trades — she knows what it’s like for your body to unsync from your surroundings, the sun in the sky when it  _ shouldn’t be _ . Hellmouth games were always worst for that. She doesn’t know how anyone lives there; it’s always so bright, and even the hotel’s blackout curtains couldn’t block the sunshine out.

There is no sun here. Sometimes she thinks she can make it out — like holding your hand in front of a flashlight, seeing the red glow of veins from within — but it could just as easily be a trick of the mind. She counts the subtle shifts in the light like a prophet interpreting messages from God regardless. What else is she supposed to do in here? She may as well scratch tally-marks into the shell’s walls and hope it carries any fucking semblance of accuracy.

In the beginning, she’d done a lot of kicking, a lot of screaming. (Once again: what else was she supposed to  _ do? _ ) There’s no  _ how-to _ guide on finding yourself trapped inside a peanut. Frankly, there should be a lot more how-to guides in blaseball. How to figure out what  _ home _ means when you’re traded to a new city every season. How to survive swimming in the Baltimore harbor and growing a crab claw. How to react when the book is opened and the umps get… significantly more eldritch.

How to get out of the goddamned  _ peanut _ you’ve found yourself trapped inside. That’d be a good one. Useful.

It’s just barely big enough to stretch her limbs out, but she’s still got a crick in her neck that she can’t seem to shake. Still got an itching boredom that simply will not go away. It’s some in-between state,  _ liminal _ , like a dream except for how it’s more of a nightmare.

The peanut has moved a few times — she thinks she was on a plane, at one point, and sometimes she can make out the faint background-noise of crowds cheering that could only ever be a blaseball game, but no specific voices penetrate the shell’s exterior. 

Nagomi isn’t sure if no one is trying to talk to her, or if the shell is just thick enough to block it. If one of their teammates put their face right against it and screamed their soul out, would she even  _ hear? _

By her reckoning, it’s been two weeks when the phone rings.

Her cell phone stopped working within a day of her legumization. It was useless even then. No data gets through the peanut shell, apparently; it’d been a brick with Clandy Crush, and without any internet she couldn’t even get on the goddamn leaderboards. It can’t be ringing in her pocket right now. Her mind has fucking cracked, brain split in two like — like a peanut shell trampled underfoot on the floor of a Flive Guys.

The knowledge that this cannot be happening spars for a moment with the knowledge that it  _ is _ happening. The latter hits the former over the head with a blaseball bat, and she scrambles, nearly ends up upside-down in her narrow shell in her haste to pick it up before it stops ringing.

“Hello?”

She doesn’t remember when the last time she talked to another person was. Hard to track time. Hard to remember teammates’ names, when she’s shuffled around so much — never enough time to really get to know them all. She’d done some pitching practice with Arias on the day of. Is that the last person she talked to?

Nagomi should really remember that. It’s hard not to be a little bit  _ morbid _ in her situation, and she can’t help but think that maybe Arias was the last person who’ll ever see her. Or maybe it was the barista on the way home, or the hotel clerk at the last away-game hotel of the season, or…

Well. Someone’s talking to her now. Or  _ at _ her, as she gets lost in her own head.

“Nagomi? Nagomi McDaniel?”

She’s never talked to Jessica Telephone, but she recognizes the voice —  _ obviously _ she recognizes the voice, she’s fucking  _ everywhere _ , she’s a blaseball goddess. Nagomi knows her name from every tabloid, from every comparison —  _ McDaniel’s good, but she’s no JT. _

Bad things happen to people who answer a phone call from Jessica Telephone. Dliscovery Channel ran a conspiracy documentary a few months ago about correlation between Telephone calls and incinerations. Nagomi doesn’t buy into it, fell asleep to the documentary in some hotel room in Philly ‘cuz she couldn’t be bothered to find the remote to change it, but — sometimes, shit you don’t necessarily  _ believe _ is still dangerous. It’s why every player in the league has a pre-game ritual, even the ones who don’t tell anyone what it is. It’s why she climbs up to the roof of the stadium before every single match and screams out every shred of rage she has directly into the sun.

Her policy, as usual, is to shout in the face of danger. She says the only thing she can think to say: “What the  _ fuck?” _

“You’re the only person I could get through to.” Jessica sounds calm. It’s halfway infuriating. Nagomi’s been freaking out for the last  _ two weeks, _ approximately, and Jessica fucking Telephone has the audacity to be  _ calm _ on the phone to her?

“I’m trapped in a fucking peanut, and I’m the only person your  _ magic telephone _ could connect to?”

“Wait, you’re trapped in a peanut, too?”

_ “What?” _

“Is the line breaking up? I said, you’re tr-”

“No, I heard you.” Nagomi takes a deep, deep breath. “I didn’t know anyone else was, uh,  _ shelled?” _

“Oh,” says Jessica Telephone. “I lost data pretty quick, but I had it enough time to get the news that you were, too.” 

She sounds apologetic. Guilt twists in Nagomi’s gut for being so judgemental. She names that guilt hunger and moves past it, though she hasn’t needed food in two weeks. 

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, that’s a good way of describing it.” Jess laughs. Nagomi is suddenly very, very aware that she doesn’t know when the last time she made someone laugh was.

She always  _ tries _ to make friends on whatever team she’s on, but it’s always a clock ticking down. It’s achingly temporary. The season will hit day 99, and then it will be the Sunday after, and she will get a text from the Commissioner telling her which team bid highest on ripping her roots up out of the ground this time — except she never has time to  _ grow _ any roots. She’s never been on the Flowers, but she thinks they’d be proud of her metaphor.

Proud and a little sad, maybe. They’re all about letting their roots grow, letting themselves  _ bloom _ .

Nagomi’s never had much energy for touchy-feely stuff like that. She has a game to play. If she focuses on the game, she doesn’t have to think about how the Jazz Hands looked at her like she was tainted by her one crab arm, or how the Fridays had  _ almost _ felt like a home, or how the Baltimore harbor water tasted in her mouth and she only found out  _ after _ her swim that you’re not meant to go in it without a hazmat suit.

There isn’t a game to focus on in here.

***

“Y’know,” Jess says sometime later, “I was really hoping we’d get to play against you last season.”

“What, a Pies-v-Hands final?”

“It could happen.”

“I mean,  _ obviously _ it could happen — any team with you on it’s gunning for the finals—”

“Hey, y’all made it further than we did.”

“Just  _ barely _ . It was a massacre out there.” Nagomi pauses. “I mean… Not literally. No, uh, no fucking rogue umps or anything.”

“No, no, I know. I caught the reruns.”

“What, you couldn’t make it to the games? Too busy with party time?”

“Please, I was practicing.”

Nagomi pauses. It’s what she’d be doing right now, too, if not for the whole imprisoned-in-a-nut thing. “You get shuffled around a lot, too.”

“Yeah,” Jessica says. “Is that a question?”

“No, I guess not.” Nagomi shakes her head, even though Jessica can’t see, because sometimes it feels good to  _ do things. _ Normal things. “You ever figure out how to make a place feel like home?”

Jess pauses for long enough that Nagomi’s considering taking the question back. She isn’t the type of person to take things back, just like that — the things Nagomi does, she puts her whole goddamn soul into, and you can’t just  _ reverse _ that — but Jessica speaks before Nagomi can open her mouth.

“Nope.” She pops the  _ p _ . It’s endearing, Nagomi thinks, and then curses herself for thinking it. How many players has she known with crushes on Jessica Telephone? Every lesbian in the league, if she had to make a guess. She’s not going to join their ranks — it’s just nice to have someone to talk to.

“Damn. Was hoping for some good advice.”

“Sorry to disappoint. I’ve got solidarity, but my only advice is to focus on the game, and based on your numbers, you’re already doing  _ that.” _

For a moment, all Nagomi can think is:  _ You look at my stats? _ It’s ridiculous. Of course Jessica would want to know how the competition is doing. (Pretty damn well.)

Nagomi snorts. “Yeah, that’s about the only thing I know how to do.”

“Yeah,” Jessica says, and it sounds like  _ me, too _ .

“How was Philly? I kept meaning to visit while I was in Baltimore — you know, outside of games, during the off-season or party time or whatever. Never got around to it.”

“It’s… I mean, it’s the closest to a  _ home base _ I’ve got.”

“Do you like it?”

“Every place has its charms,” Jess says. It’s so fucking vague and so fucking  _ Jess _ that Nagomi can’t help but laugh.

_ “What?” _ says Jess a moment later.

“C’mon,” Nagomi says, half-breathless. “Don’t give me the magazine reporter response.  _ Oh, everyone’s great, good to have ‘em on the team, incinerations are just how it goes, no, the blood rain  _ didn’t _ impact my playing at all _ , etcetera. I mean, we all do it, but. No one else is listening, Jess. Just you and me here.”

“Right, yeah.” She sounds sheepish. Embarrassed. Nagomi imagines she’s running a hand through her hair, and then feels very, very weird for inventing made-up nervous tics for someone she’s never talked to face-to-face. A moment passes. “It’s fine, you know? Calmer than Hades was. Colder than Dallas, most of the season. Good art museum.”

“You like art?”

“It’s not about liking or not liking, it’s… There’s all these stairs to get up to it, right? And once you’re at the top you feel untouchable. None of the stuff we worry about — no feedback, no umps, no fastballs that you  _ just _ barely miss — none of it can touch you up there.”

Nagomi knows the feeling.

It’s how she feels before every game, at the highest point in the stadium, looking just to the left of the sun. (Can’t risk  _ actually _ looking at it. She’s not a Sunbeam. She’s very much at risk of blindness.) On the field, anything can happen, but in that moment, nothing can reach her.

By all rights, it’s how she should be feeling here — untouchable, immortal. It turns out, the important think about standing at the top of the world is having a ladder back to the ground. An escape route.

Talking to Jessica is the closest she’s come to it since she’s been in here.

“None of it can touch you here, either,” she points out, even though she knows it isn’t the point. It’s something to say.

“Not the same,” Jess says. Like she knows Nagomi knows what she’s talking about. Like she wants to hear Nagomi say it.

“Yeah.”

***

They talk about art.

They talk about their cities. Their teams. Which pizza place in Hades does the best deep dish, which leads to a half-serious argument over whether deep dish or thin crust is best, which leads to both of them promising to try the others’ recommendations, you know, when they’re released from their respective peanut prisons.

Nagomi’s phone doesn’t have the time, or the date, or anything other than the phone call screen and Jess’ name, and when the hell did Jess’ number get added to her contacts? The screen says  _ Jessica Telephone _ , with the blaseball emoji and a telephone emoji. The old kind; a rotary phone, the type the Dial Tone is modeled after. Nagomi doesn’t use emojis in her contacts. Jessica’s phone at least has the common decency to give her a clock. According to Jessica, it’s been four hours by the time one of them yawns. Five when Nagomi’s eyes start drifting shut.

“Should get some rest,” Jessica says. She yawns mid-sentence. It’s a mystery why they still have to sleep, when every other general human need seems to have abandoned them. Maybe it’s something like mercy. It breaks up the days, at least; gives them something other than endless monotony.

Or, it did. Nagomi doesn’t look forward to sleep anymore, not when it means time spent alone again.

She didn’t realize how much she missed talking to people.

“Ugh,” Nagomi says. Taps her nails against her clawed hand. It makes a satisfying ting-ting-ting sound, echoes around the peanut. Maybe the Garages will let her play percussion if she ever gets sent over to Seattle.

“Hm?”

“Are you…” She cuts off mid-sentence, summons up her courage, and starts again. “D’you think it’ll let you call me again? After we hang up?”

“Why wouldn’t it? It did the first time.”

“Since when do any of the rules make sense?”

That gets a laugh from Jessica, though it’s more of a tired chuckle, if Nagomi’s being honest. She should just let Jess hang up. Keep her fingers crossed that the phones cooperate.

She’s very, very aware that  _ her _ phone doesn’t work, and it’s entirely up to Jessica whether she wants to call Nagomi back in the morning.

“Good point,” says Jessica. “I don’t know. Usually I can tell these things? I mean — it’s in the name, you know. Phone stuff. But it’s weird in here.”

“Yeah,” Nagomi says. “It is.”

“We don’t have to hang up,” Jessica says, suddenly.

Nagomi makes a noise. Something halfway between confusion and  _ okay, sure. _ She’s too tired to make up her mind one way or the other.

“Like a sleepover, or something. Just fall asleep, keep your phone on, and I’ll be here when you wake up.”

She says it so matter-of-fact, Nagomi  _ can’t _ question the soundness of the plan. There’s nothing wrong with it, not really. It’s a smart plan: unless the gods disconnect their phones in the middle of the night, this way no calling back will be necessary, and, well, if anything goes wrong… At least they’ll both know.

“Don’t think I’ve ever had a sleepover.”

“Well,  _ I’m _ about to pass out. Get some rest, Nagomi.”

Nagomi thinks: she likes the way her name sounds when Jessica says it.

Nagomi thinks: it’s sort of...  _ intimate _ , sleeping as close to side-by-side as they can get, isn’t it?

Nagomi thinks:  _ good. _

“Sweet dreams, Jess.”

“Sweet dreams.”

**Author's Note:**

> (nagomi and jess emerging from their shells several months later, having fallen deeply in love over a 5000 hour long phone call in that time, only to find that the league is on fire, necromancy is real, and incinerations are happening left and right: _what the fuck_ )
> 
> thanks for reading! drop a comment if you liked it!
> 
> you can find me on tumblr @ [haunthouse](http://haunthouse.tumblr.com), or on my [twitter](http://twitter.com/kayleerowena). claws up!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] i want to be a context for you (and for me)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27327877) by [growlery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/growlery/pseuds/growlery)




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